Re: SEUL: Re: sdoc draft spec - Question tags

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

In message <35F6AAA4.5B02C6F1@trentu.ca>, pstonge@trentu.ca writes:
>> People who are interested in any of these applications should start
>> thinking now about what tags they want supported. That is, in
>> seul-research, we should come up with each "type" of question we'll
>> have, and maybe how they should look in terms of final html. If you
>> give me adequate specs, the actual implementation of a handler will
>> be trivial.
>
>     Okay, here are some ideas ;-). Suggest that most questions could be
>set up using single or balanced tags:
>
><Question %type%>Foo</Question>
><Question %type%="Foo">
>
>     ...where type is the answer type expected. This would allow for
>existing HTML shells to build it without having the user losing sight of
>the tags (especially when the tags themselves are hidden - my pet

This is actually an interesting point. I have zero experience with
wysiwyg html generators. Can they be frobbed to use tags that you
specify? Or are they locked into using only <tt>, <anchor>, etc.

>peeve). This would also make it easier to adapt existing docs to the
>standard. As for types of answers, here are some ideas:
>
><Question Check="Foo">   ... Check mark box
><Question YesNo="Foo">   ... radio buttons with Yes and No
><Question ButtonX="Foo"> ... X radio buttons, choose one.
><Question NumberX="Foo"> ... as ButtonX, but buttons are numbered
><Question Text="Foo">    ... text box for typed answer
><Question Parag="Foo">   ... big text box for typed answer (multi-line)
><Question Group="Foo"></Question> ... see below**

Actually, I had originally been picturing 7 different tags (<checkbox>,
<yesnobutton>, <radiobutton>, etc. But a single tag with a lot of
parameter parsing could work just as well. The main benefit that I can
see from using a single <question> would be that you could say
<question check="foo" text="bar">, and have two things in a single tag.
Did you have this is mind, or did I just come up with it? Can you see
any use in it?

>Examples of this would be (yes, I am switching between both 'formats'
>here...
><Question Parag>Tell me about your childhood:</Question>
><Question Number7>How many siblings did you have?</Question>

I think I'd prefer <questionnumber numchoices=7> for this one. More
flexible.

><Question YesNo="Were you the oldest?">
><Question Check>Please check this box if you have sisters</Question>

note that as I said in a previous post, the parser currently doesn't
handle <question check>. It needs <question check="">. But that can
be changed. Should it be changed? There are several ambiguities
introduced if you don't enforce pairs separated by =.

>     and of course...
>
>Please rank the following in terms of satisfaction, from Excellent to
>Very unsatisfactory
><Question Button5="OS Stability">
><Question Button5="clarity of documentation">
><Question Button5="completedness of documentation">

i like this. this example indicates how much effort we can save, compared
to writing all the html from scratching and modifying all of it whenever
we change our minds.

>I imagine there would be some occasions where several radio buttons are
>needed, with some associated text:
>
>"How much do you make?
>under 5K, 5-10K, 11-30K, 31-100K, over 100K" could set up as...
>
><Question Group="How much do you make?">
>under 5K</Q>
>5-10K</Q>
>11-30K</Q>
>31-100K</Q>
>over 100K</Q>
></Question>

err...what is the </q> construct you're using there? Where is the begin-tag?

>It might be possible to set up this tag like the others, in that if the
>first tag itself does not contain the question, it would be found in the
>first slot:
>
><Question Group>
>How much do you make?</Q>
>under 5K</Q>
>5-10K</Q>
>11-30K</Q>
>31-100K</Q>
>over 100K</Q>
></Question>

I would be picturing this as
<question type=group option1="under 5k" option2=5-10k option3=11-30k
option4=31-100k option5="over 100k"> or something like that. But I guess
it all depends on what those </q>'s are that you're using.

Thanks,
--Roger